Bloom by Somni

Somni’s Bloom is the sort of debut so rich with personality and character, so effortlessly smooth in its glide from song to song, that it’s hard to imagine Leo Shulman even breaking a sweat during its creation. But this gem of a debut, an immediate entrant into the beat scene canon, is the culmination of nearly three years of painstaking revisions and full-on reinventions. Arriving fully formed on August 17th via LA electronic staple Friends of Friends, Bloom is an unfurling, a declaration, a love letter from Shulman to the music of his life. Now a breathtakingly elegant listen, this debut was an Apocalypse Now-level creative battle between Shulman and his desired sound during these early days of creation.

The work was worth it. On Bloom, Somni displays chops he’s honed from a lifetime of musical pursuits. There’s the classical influence he inherited from his British family of musicians—his homeland until he moved to California at age eight; the beat scene cool he devoured as an LA resident during Low End Theory’s heydey; and the jazz chops he honed with his New School classmates over eight hour practice sessions during college. All of these facets of Shulman’s life coalesce into this debut Somni LP, an album indebted to influences and places, fads and moments, yet twisted and skewed to the liking of a totally unique musical voice. There’s “Overgrown,” the Nabeyin-featuring first single, filled with chopped and melted harps and strings; never before have classical instruments been introduced to the filth quite like this. “Before You” impressively ambles along with a shuffled groove, always off-kilter yet never disorienting, while “Silver” is a maximalist ode to springtime and that first day of eternal sun—images and feelings conjured without a word uttered.

These moments are just mere samples of what Somni accomplishes on Bloom, and with how astonishingly assured the record is from front to back, it’s likely just the edge of what Leo Shulman is about to explore. After three years of working towards Bloom’s eventual, well, blooming, one listen will prove it was more than worth the wait.

Somni is Leo Shulman, a UK born, LA based producer & singer/songwriter. Leo started making music at an early age, studying classical, jazz, & folk music w/ guitar being his focus. Inspired by LA beat scene titans like Flying Lotus and Shlohmo, as well as UK based artists like Burial and Portishead, Leo is now signed to Friends of Friends & has just released his second full length album, Home.